


Leverage

by Beginte



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Angst, BAMF!Q, Canon-Typical Violence, Established Relationship, Feelings, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Q and Bond get kidnapped, Q is a vengeful creature, Q saves the day, There's torture, also BAMF!Bond, the villain tries to be cool
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-29
Updated: 2016-06-29
Packaged: 2018-07-19 02:47:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7341520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beginte/pseuds/Beginte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Fine,” Gorev lifts the gun. “Sometimes, there are worse things than death, yes?” he strolls back over to the table, Q tipping his head back as he watches him, the words no less horrible for being annoyingly cliché. “Sometimes,” Gorev carries on in a musing tone, “sometimes it’s the suffering of others that brings the worst pain. Especially the suffering of those we care about,” he picks up another instrument from the table and tosses it at one of the henchmen stationed over James.</i>
</p><p>-</p><p>A mission goes wrong and Q and Bond both end up kidnapped. Their captor wants Q to hack into MI6 for him, and when Q refuses, he decides to try and get the right leverage - namely, to torture Bond in front of Q.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leverage

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Castillon02](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Castillon02/gifts).



> For the lovely [Castillon02](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Castillon02/pseuds/Castillon02) who wanted something angsty for the fandom gift week (which was super long ago but shhh). It got wildly out of hand and ended up being much longer than I expected - I hope you like it!
> 
> I checked the graphic depictions of violence just in case, but it's pretty much canon-typical.

* * *

It was all supposed to be just a simple recon mission. In fact, it necessitated Q’s presence only because an air-gapped computer was supposed to be hacked into, its security allegedly heavy in order to protect the incriminating data of one Sergei Gorev – a Russian arms dealer who’d set up camp in Austria.

Still, it's the simplest missions that so often go tits-up, and just as Q and Bond are sneaking about a storage facility, Q feels a sharp pain in the back of his head and then the world plunges into darkness.

When Q comes to, it’s to a steady pulse of headache glowing in the back of his skull. He groans, the sound echoed vaguely back at him, along with the faint dripping of water and something deeper, darker, more massive, humming distantly.

His eyelashes sting and snag when he opens his eyes, and he realises there’s a bit of dried blood on them. An abrupt burst of light makes him cringe and narrow his eyes, the strip of brightness smudging and blurring across his vision before his pupils balance out the surroundings, and then he can blink and take a better look.

The room is damp and dark and vast, grimy, the walls lined with rusty pipes that drip water into small puddles on the coarse concrete below. A slightly anaemic flicker of light on the ceiling and from a shoddy lamp standing nearby. No windows. A stained metal table with an assortment of tools that send a vile shiver up Q’s spine. In a corner, like a pile of abandoned hope, their guns and several other items they had on them are stacked on the ground, left to be seen and to torment with hopelessness.

There’s no Bond in sight.

He looks around, stupidly, because deep down he knows he’s alone; a pulse of sharp, hysteric sensation as if something has been severed, because he can’t see James anywhere. He’s been constantly so near him through all this mission, by his side, in his bed, and now he’s not here, and something bleeds frantically inside Q. He’s not here, he’s not here, he’s _not here_...

The dripping echoes more and more loudly, the stark solitude oppressive, and Q clears his throat, sending a flare of pain through his own head. His move to press a hand to what must be a well and truly humongous bump is halted, his wrists held fast by ropes to the armrests of the chair he’s sitting in.

Panic hits his bloodstream, the confinement unbearable, a jolt of raw self-preservation instinct surging through him, and he grunts again, pointlessly struggling in the chair, the only result being a loud scrape of metal sent across the room.

The sound of the door opening is like a small explosion, breaking through his panic and causing him to jerk in surprise, and he narrows his eyes to peer past the lamp’s glare; thankfully, they’d at least had the decency to leave his glasses on. They (whoever they are) might be at least somewhat reasonable, even though they’ve got horrendously cliché taste in their interrogation/torture rooms.

“Ah, Quartermaster, you’re awake,” a man strides briskly inside, followed by another one wielding a gun and also something else under his arm, something silver and familiar - Q’s laptop. “I apologise for the inconvenience, but if everyone gets along and cooperates, you’ll be out of here soon enough.”

His footsteps echo as he approaches, and then he stops, standing across the table from Q. It’s Gorev, dressed in a fine suit and bearing the confident, despotic pleasantness of a man who has the means to force others to comply. He looks at Q for a moment, then drums his fingers on the table, drawing Q’s attention to the tools displayed on it. Q swallows, jaws clenching shut, a cold grip tightening his insides.

He’s scared of the pain. He’s not a 00, he’s not an agent, and he’s terrified of pain, he’s terrified of torture, and most of all he’s terrified of having to endure it over and over again before he’s killed - because he knows he won’t break. No matter how much he fears pain, he knows he won’t break under it. Which means the pain will go on and on until he’s executed when it’s apparent he will not give in. And it terrifies him. The looming inevitability of it makes him feel like sicking up.

Gorev flicks a gesture at his sidekick (he’s certainly got the show-off villain part down pat) who deposits Q’s laptop on the table. Gorev walks around the table, stands beside Q and opens the laptop for him.

“Now, this is all really simple,” he says, and Q looks at the black screen of his computer, running Gorev’s data in his mind to collect his thoughts - drugs and arms dealer, born and raised in Russia, then attending a university in the USA, hence his American accent. “I want you to go into the MI6 database and erase some files, and then download a few others for me. You do this and I let you go. Honest, I promise,” he crosses his heart in a manner probably meant to show he’s got a personality.

Q’s skull continues to throb as he focuses on a new, crucially important fact. Gorev doesn't want information from him, he wants him to get into the MI6 network, which means he needs him functioning to do it. This means they can’t afford to properly, medievally torture him; they can’t push him past the point of usefulness. They can either kill him or negotiate. Small mercy, that. (He’s terrified of death, too. So really - a _very_ small mercy.) Q gathers all that is in him and looks up at Gorev, as steady and cold as he can be with blood dripping slowly from his bruised nose. Negotiation is all he’s got, and he intends to make the most of it.

“Where is Bond?” his voice is rough, coarse, but doesn’t crack. His lip does, a wet sting releasing a dab of warm blood.

Gorev looks at him, and then simply goes on.

“I’ll tell you which files I need you to delete or download for me, and we can avoid a lot of unpleasantness and wasted time.”

Q swallows to alleviate the dryness in his throat, takes a breath through the pain in his chest, and speaks in a voice like steel.

“My agent. Where is he,” there’s no longer a question, it’s a demand, and Q counts it as victory.

Gorev tuts - honest to god tuts. Why does James always have to go against the melodramatic ones?

“Stubborn. Don’t worry, Quartermaster, he’s here. He’s alive. We’ll let him go too, as soon as you’ve done what I ask. And believe me, I’m about to stop _asking_...” he picks up something that looks like it belongs at a dentist’s and tosses it up in his hand.

Q swallows. His skin is crawling with deep, primal alarm, an insufferably physical need to run away, fingers flexing, breath short in his chest when Gorev moves closer, the glint of metal sharp in his hand.

Still, the longer the theatrics take, the better. He and Bond are both chipped, and sooner or later R must notice their locations don’t correspond with where they’re supposed to be right now. Though even despite that, the odds of help arriving in time aren’t very appealing.

Gorev tosses the instrument up in his hand, letting the unpleasant light glance off its surface, and he lists the files he’s interested in. Q stares motionlessly at his laptop’s screen, resolve hardened. The air smells like damp concrete and corroded metal and his own blood.

“Look, I’m not a very patient man. So this is the last time I _ask_... are you going to get me those files?”

“No.”

Gorev hits him. It’s a blast of lightning slamming into his head, erupting with pain and knocking his vision out for a moment. It’s not even darkness, it’s _nothing_ , his brain staggering before a blurred swirl enters his eyes again and the surroundings slowly return, spinning and askew. His cheekbone flares with pain, almost obliterating the previous ache in the back of his head.

Hazy, Q blinks, giving a cough, eyes almost certainly crossed as he instinctively tries to focus on Gorev, the most immediate danger in the room. His glasses are crooked and somewhere in the back of his mind it’s maddening that his hands are tied and he can’t set them straight on his nose.

“How about now?” Gorev gestures at the laptop.

“No,” slurs Q, a downward swoop of hopelessness tugging at his heart.

Gorev sighs and picks up a length of pipe from the table, weighing it in his hand for a moment.

“You know, I was really hoping you’d be reasonable,” he says, and then he whacks the pipe across Q’s left shin.

The pain cracks blindingly through the bone, ripping a raw scream from Q’s throat. It hurts so much Q wants to pass out, he wants this to stop, to _not be_ , and the scream breaks off into a stuttered groan catching in his chest, muscles constricting. He tries to clench his teeth to stop them from chattering. A hot trickle of involuntary tears burns down his cheeks, smearing dirt and blood together.

The bone is seized by pain and it’s not going away and he tries to breathe. In through his nose. Out with a long, drawn groan through his mouth. Eyes on the black screen. He suddenly becomes aware of his own, vague reflection in it.

Gorev is holding the pipe in one hand, tapping it against the palm of the other, and Q bites through the pain and channels everything he’s got into his strength: his mind.

“I am reasonable,” he says and lifts his gaze to meet Gorev’s own relentlessly. “I know you can’t torture me, not _really_ ,” he winces a little to emphasise the point. “You need me in working order. So let’s be _reasonable_ , as you say, and agree that torture won’t get you anywhere.”

Gorev lifts his eyebrows. Then, he tosses the pipe back on the table with a loud clatter.

“That _is_ reasonable. And you’re right, I can’t _really_ torture you. So let’s change things up a bit,” he turns to the sidekick again. “Bring him in.”

The three words pull Q’s heart down into his stomach, because he knows what this means, he knows where Gorev is going and what will play out in a moment. The door opens again and there’s James, being pushed inside by two other men, and even despite this obviously being a bad development, Q still experiences a surge of joy and relief in seeing him alive, even though the circumstances are several thousand miles away from ideal.

He’s beaten up too, scowling, a trickle of blood half-dried across his cheek and lending him an even more belligerent look. His hands are tied behind his back, and the blue eyes are flashing with anger, sweeping over the room and instantly zeroing in on Q. He twitches in reaction to how alarmingly worse for wear Q must look, and he instinctively fights against the restraints, lunging towards Q, but the two henchmen manage to push him down to his knees. Something wet and angry tears through Q at the sight of it, of James, 007, his proud, resilient, clever James being so degradingly forced down into submission, the chipped and pebbled concrete digging into his knees painfully. It’s wrong.

“James,” Q doesn’t stop himself from saying it. Because it’s all he _can_ say to him right now, in front of their captors. Familiar blue eyes stay on him, faithful and loyal, holding Q’s gaze. It almost makes everything worse, damn him.

“Q,” he says simply back.

“Touching,” Gorev’s voice grates on Q’s nerves. “And just what I needed,” he picks up a gun and walks over to James, and alarm snaps tight through Q’s chest. James lifts his chin and stares down the barrel with an almost immature defiance while Gorev turns to Q. “I’m going to count to five and if you don’t agree to get me those files-” he makes a popping sound with his mouth.

Q’s hands clench into fists, an angry mix of protectiveness, vengefulness and fear balled tightly and painfully together in his chest, teeth gritting. When he speaks, his voice carries unyieldingly across the room like it does when he commands Q-Branch through a mission.

“If you kill him, you will never get what you want. Never. So if you pull this trigger, you might as well shoot me already too.”

James twitches, a growl escaping him at the words, and Q shoots him a steady look, as calming as possible to pull off with blood caked on his face, and it stills James enough - at least for the moment.

Q gambles everything on his usefulness, calculating the shifting odds and doing his best to stretch that usefulness over James’ life as well, to make sure Gorev knows that Q is emotionally compromised and therefore perfectly capable of refusing to cooperate if James is killed. Still, this gamble has one fatal flaw that Q cannot possibly avoid, for all that he tries, and sure enough, Gorev sees it too.

“Fine,” he lifts the gun. “Sometimes, there are worse things than death, yes?” he strolls back over to the table, Q tipping his head back as he watches him, the words no less horrible for being annoyingly cliché. “Sometimes,” Gorev carries on in a musing tone, “sometimes it’s the suffering of others that brings the worst pain. Especially the suffering of those we _care_ about,” he picks up another instrument from the table and tosses it at one of the henchmen stationed over James.

Q’s chest clenches tight, something horribly dark swirling inside him and making him slack in the chair for a split moment, muscles giving out as the reality looms closer and closer. Inevitable. Everything inside him aches for a second, protesting, and he physically wants to give in, to protect James from harm like he’s supposed to - over the comms and in person. In this moment, he wants more than anything to do something to keep James from being hurt, but the only thing he could do, he actually _cannot_ do.

James’ eyes are burning flints of arctic blue, harsh and trained furiously on Gorev, and Q’s fingernails dig into his palms.

“You were right, we can’t physically damage you overmuch. But there’s more than one way to torture a man,” drawls Gorev. “So. What’s it gonna be?”

James shakes his head, but even without that Q’s answer is ready; it lies heavy, bitter and horrible in his mouth. He spits it out to get rid of it, to be done with it.

“No.”

Only, he won’t be done with it. No. It’s only just beginning.

“Fine,” Gorev gestures at the henchmen; one of them grips the back of James’ neck and pushes him forward, forcing his head down, and Q’s breath hitches in an almost hysteric pulse, heart speeding up and rattling in his throat, James’ eyes widened and latching onto Q’s.

“Q, don’t look, _don’t look_!” he says, rushed and urgent as his arms are twisted painfully behind his back, and Q shuts his eyes.

He doesn’t do it because he wouldn’t be able to watch. To be honest, he’s not sure which would be worse. He does it because James asked him to. He does it to give James this one flimsy scrap of control he can possibly have in this situation, and that is ensuring that Q doesn’t watch him while he’s tortured. If this makes the whole situation even remotely more manageable for him, Q will not hesitate to give him at least this much.

He can still hear though. And with his eyes closed, his hearing sharpens, the echoed sounds pressing against him, _into_ him, coarse and brutal and unbearable. He can hear shuffling, the rustle of fabric and scrape of shoes against the concrete, James’ grunt and hitched breath, and then a quiet flick of something. His skin stings with raw, prickling alert as he hears enemies moving about but unable to see them.

James grunts again and his breathing suddenly evens out into steady, unshakeable rhythm; in and out, deep and inhumanly even. Bile rises in Q’s throat, because this is James falling back on his training, locking himself away in the mechanics of surviving torture. It’s somehow horrifying. No human should breathe so steadily through pain.

More rustling and then a distinct sound of a punch, and then another, and then one more, each met with a loud grunt from James and with a skipped heartbeat from Q. He can hear James spit in a moment of pause, and a new, stronger smell of fresh blood reaches his nose.

Brief footsteps, a struggle, James’ breath hitching suddenly on a part-angry part-startled gasp, and then a sickening, dull pop of bone and cartilage so loud that it fills the entire room, and James actually screams. It’s clipped and harsh, but it rings in Q’s ears, forcing him to realise that they’d just dislocated James’ shoulder. His head spins and his chest feels terrifyingly hollow for a moment.

James is panting now, but even this is steady, kept at an even pace, until there is a swish and rustle of fabric, and then suddenly his breathing is choked off and _gone._ A halted, wet snarl echoes through the room, and Q’s heart hammers in his chest, a pulse of hysteric, primal fear surging through him because _they’re choking him_ , _they’re choking James!_

“I suggest you _look!”_ Gorev shouts the last word in his ear, a hand gripping Q’s hair and yanking painfully, causing him to scream and open his eyes just in time to see a length of fabric being let loose from around James’ neck, leaving an angry red welt on the skin as James gasps for air.

He’s beaten and bloodied, the skin on his left cheekbone split by one of the punches, blood dripping from a smashed lip. He’s still on his knees, his right shoulder awkward and dislocated. Blue eyes are dazed for a moment before they settle on Q, coming out of a haze, and Q suddenly tastes blood and realises he’d been biting on his lower lip.

Q knows James is trained to withstand torture for days, but Q isn’t and never will be trained to withstand James being tortured.

“You know,” Gorev speaks and Q can hear a hiss of gas and then a rattling hum of a flame as he turns to see that Gorev lit up a gas torch. “This _probably_ won’t kill your boyfriend here,” Gorev says slowly as he walks over to James, the torch in hand, and everything inside Q screams, cold exploding within his chest. “But he won’t be so nice to look at anymore.”

James’ eyes are wide, the proximity of the flame colouring the irises with a sickening pale gold. His breathing quickens and he flinches away on instinct, the henchmen holding him in place.

“Stop!” Q cries out. He cannot let this happen. He’ll stall once he’s working on the laptop, he’ll send a distress signal and drag things out as much as possible, he’ll think of _something, anything_. He just doesn’t know what yet.

Gorev turns with a look of triumph in his eyes.

“Q...” James says, his voice strapped raw and hoarse from the strangling. Q ignores the half-plea half-warning in his tone. He cannot really see James reasonably accepting having his face melted off as an alternative anyway.

“I’ll do it,” Q says. “Just... leave him alone and untie my fucking hands.”

Gorev kills the flame and puts the torch away. He picks up a knife from the table and cuts through Q’s restraints. Theoretically, Q _could_ try to use this to leap and tackle Gorev, snatch the gun from his holster (he does have _some_ mandatory training, being a high-risk kidnapping target and all, as it’s being demonstrated right now), but there are the two henchmen in the room, both of them with their hands on James, a third one by the door, plus at least one more guard he’d glimpsed stationed outside. No, this would never work. Not to mention, he’s never actually _done_ it, only in training sessions, which hardly carries the same risk of having a bullet lodged in his skull.

He rubs his sore wrists and flexes his stiffened fingers, glancing at James, swallowing thickly at the sight of the red mark on his neck, and gives him a steady look. It’ll be fine, he reassures them both.

“Get on with it,” Gorev says, just as Q powers up the laptop, and then he loudly cocks the gun and trains it on James. “And no funny business.”

Q hacks into the MI6 network roughly once a month. Or rather, attempts to hack into it - it’s a security exercise meant to test his own work from the perspective of a hacker of his (very considerable, thank you) calibre. It helps him pinpoint and locate potential weaknesses or areas which need updating. He picks at his firewalls and traps and safeguards, tinkers with them as a lock pick would with a complex safe, hunts for any unguarded backdoors, and deploys brute force as well as intricate mastery. He would also lie if he said he didn’t enjoy flexing his hacker muscles this way (and perhaps giving into some brief narcissism along the way, especially according to James as he peers at him with blue eyes narrowed by a smile). It’s certainly a good way to spend an evening: a thrilling duel with himself, a mug of night-time tea steaming by his elbow, James’ legs tangled with his on the sofa.

This is nothing like the well-loved, familiar evening at home. Home is now achingly far away, locked up and dark, and James’ presence is marked by harsh though steady breathing and a sting of fear for his life tingling down the back of Q’s neck, instead by the rhythmic rustle of turned pages in his book and occasional, playful wiggle of legs, his feet lazily battling Q’s on the cushions.

Trouble is, Q’s security measures are truly uncrackable. On one hand, it works to his advantage in this situation, allowing him to stall - but he can’t stall forever. Sooner or later, he’ll have to give Gorev something, or Gorev will straight up demand he log in as Quartermaster. He could get into the fake, mirror network and database set up for all sorts of emergencies and covert operations, but Gorev would instantly realise the fake files are essentially empty.

As he types, Q sends out a highest priority distress signal. It’s very simple and very discrete; a certain combination of keys pressed at certain intervals, one of the many security measures he’d devised. The signal is fired off silently and without any notifications or display of commands on the screen. It carries with itself a data package containing the exact geographic location, and Q hopes with all he’s got in him that the help will arrive here on time. He’s not entirely sure where they are, but based on the time showing on his computer screen he roughly calculates how long he’d been unconscious, which leaves him with some grasp of a maximum distance they could possibly be away from the nearest spot the help might be arriving from. Unless they’d got bloody _flown_ here, but he’s fairly certain that isn’t the case.

He meanders and ambles through the maze of his own security, buying as much time as he can, but the minutes trickle all too slowly and reluctantly, and the piercing fear seeps deeper and deeper into his spine, prickling the back of his neck.

James’ breathing is back to normal now, at least. No more raspy wheezing leftover from the strangling attempt, and Q latches onto that scrap of warm comfort, however meaningless it may be for their predicament. He flexes his fingers again, glaring at the guard by the door just because he’s in his sight range.

It’s then that he sees it - in the pile of their equipment, stripped from them and dumped in a corner of the room. James’ watch, smashed to disable whatever tracking devices Gorev suspected were in it, but the explosive still very much intact, as Q had wisely designed it to be shock-resistant, lest half the 00s blow their own wrists off otherwise.

His heartbeat quickens once more, but this time with a new, bright burst of energy entering his bloodstream. Carefully, he keeps his face blank, mindful not to alert Gorev and not to give away a precious chance that had just sparked up on the horizon.

With a new, good sort of adrenaline thrumming in his veins, he keeps on typing and sets out to test Gorev’s comprehension of code, push his luck and feel out possible limits. He opens up a couple new windows, types in a few useless commands that haven’t got anything to do with the process currently at hand, but which he could talk his way out of if called out on it.

Nothing.

Gorev is out of his line of sight, his presence behind him a constant, chafing prickle on the back of his neck and a tightness in his throat because he is as aware of the gun pointed at James as if he were looking at it constantly.

Carefully, watchful of any signs of suspicion behind his back, Q gets to work. He types in a quick string of commands and makes contact with the watch - the device is designed to be detonated remotely from Q-Branch as well as manually. Everything seems to be working fine, the explosive in the watch functional and awaiting orders.

He hesitates, eyeing the watch, quickly calculating the distance and juxtaposing it with the blast radius, and for a split second he wavers. But it’s their only option, and the resolve hardens bravely within him.

Jumping between windows, Q continues picking uselessly away at his own firewall in between setting up the watch, keeping steady even as he can hear Gorev losing patience behind him. He’s aware of James’ sharp, keen eyes following his every move, tracking all that happens on the screen even though he doesn’t understand everything, and he boldly ploughs on, typing up the last line.

He pauses and turns to look straight at James.

“James, your watch,” is all he says, all the precious warning and preparation he gives. But a flash in James’ eyes tells him it’s enough.

And then, before Gorev or his henchmen can react to the odd phrase, he hits ‘enter’ and executes the command.

The explosion blasts with a burst of light and heat, the loud bang shattering in on itself inside the cavernous room; a surge of scalding hot force and Q tips back, toppling still in the chair.

He barely feels it when he hits the ground, ears filled numbly with thick, faintly ringing cotton, and he shifts his weight, the blurry world swinging excruciatingly slowly as he rolls out of the chair. It feels like he’s moving through tar, panic and alarm raging inside him but his body slowed down and heavy, and he half-crawls on the floor as he tries to locate Gorev.

Blinking fog and residual flash of light out of his eyes, Q spots him; Gorev is lying on the ground, dazed but very much alive, and Q mercilessly forces every muscle in his body to _move._ Gorev’s hand is still holding onto the gun, and Q lunges at it, just as Gorev seems to be coming around and the deafness rushes rapidly out of Q’s ears like the sea drawn back ravenously by an oncoming wave.

Sounds crash into him, the noises of a fight somewhere nearby, and Q glances quickly to see James already expertly battling the two henchmen despite bound hands _and_ a dislocated shoulder, doing highly 00 things with his body and delivering brutal kicks.

Q snatches the gun from Gorev and gets up, Gorev kicking at his legs, and Q aims and fires _._

Contrary to what most people imagine, Q is actually a bloody good shot, thanks very much, and has the scores to prove it - highest in all of MI6, better than all the 00s. But with the daze and the shuddering adrenaline fuelled by the continuous strain of the past two hours or so, Q’s shot goes into Gorev’s shoulder as the man lurches aside on instinct.

Gorev’s scream of pain sends a rush of bloodthirsty satisfaction through Q. Despite his cool, professional composure, he’s very much a vengeful person when provoked - and today he was provoked like never before. He thinks of James’ pain, his stripped defences and enforced vulnerability, the hurt that was inflicted on him today, and he rights his aim and fires again.

The bullet flings clean through Gorev’s skull just as he’s getting up, notching his head back and trailing a splash of blood as it exits, and Gorev’s body drops abruptly to the ground.

The guard who had been by the door is not there, having been standing _much_ too close to the exploding watch when it, well, _exploded_ , but the other guard, stationed outside the door, is just rushing in, and Q jerks and fells him with a shot in the knee.

Heart frantic, he turns to James and finds him just snatching a knife from one of the now (violently) expired henchmen and slicing through the zip ties binding his hands. His eyes are already on Q, sharp and sweeping over his form on the lookout for any new injuries, which is at this point that it occurs to Q he hadn’t really taken stock of his own body after the explosion. Luckily, James doesn’t seem suddenly alarmed (not more than the battle alert he’s on, at any rate) and Q doesn’t feel as though anything had ruptured inside, so he figures he’s more or less fine.

“James,” he breathes out, just as a burst of hollering echoes somewhere down the corridor. James is battered, eyes wild with adrenaline, and Q feels something hollow and sickening inside when he notices blood dripping from underneath his fingernails and realises what it is that was done to James so silently _._ “James, are you-”

“I’m fine,” James says in a clipped tone, voice hoarse; Q notices his shoulder is no longer dislocated, and he chooses not to think about this right now. “We’ve got to get out, grab your computer.”

Q does just that, dropping the gun in his hand only in order to swap it out for a much more promising MP5 - they’ll need something with substantial firepower if they’re to make it out of this building alive and find a hiding place to wait for help. His shin flares with pain when he moves.

“Come on,” he says to James who also picks up a gun, though with a hiss of pain as his cruelly injured fingers doubtlessly hurt.

On the way out, he spares a glance at Gorev’s body, the head surrounded by a pool of blood. Q feels no remorse - not even a professional one, in terms of the intel they could possibly have got out of Gorev, and isn’t that something Psych would just _love_ to hear.

They tear their way through the utterly unknown building, instinctively mapping out their escape route as they search for a way out. Hollering catches up to them, and in a hail of bullets chipping flecks of brick off the walls they manage to stay alive.

At last they get out, several more dead bodies left behind them in the building, and they limp their way out into a sparse forest that seems to be just beyond the outskirts of a city, by Q’s reckoning. The building they’d been held in is just one storey high, and they scale on top, deciding that this will be a good place to wait for the extraction team to find them. Gorev and his men are dead and no reinforcements are coming.

Dusk is falling around them in the Austrian woods, and Q feels a chill in the air, his body shivering in protest as a deep exhaustion and pain sink into every single bone and nerve he has. Beside him, James twitches with a small hiss as he bumps one of his injuries.

They huddle together for warmth, Q keeping the gun even as his body screams in protest against any more alertness.

James’ body is also shutting down, now that the adrenaline is ebbing rapidly, and he starts succumbing to the exhaustion. He rests his head against Q's even as he blinks and tries to keep his eyes from closing, clinging to wakefulness on instinct. Q knows that he’s capable of enduring much longer periods of extreme physical exhaustion and still power through them and get home and only shut down there. And then he realises that James feels safe enough with him that his body is beginning to let go now, even though he fights it and stays alert to guard Q.

Q takes one bloodied hand in his and holds, gently. His breathing is still laboured and his injuries ache more and more with each passing minute.

“Q?” James mumbles. His voice is almost soft.

“My ears won’t stop ringing,” Q says, because they won’t, and he irrationally worries they never will.

“It‘ll go away,” James promises. “Trust me.”

“Good. Wouldn’t want to end up like you - selectively hard of hearing. You only hear what you want to hear,” Q gripes and James snorts.

“Hmm,” he still won’t let go of his gun.

Q bites his lip, looking at the cruel cuts made under his fingernails. They’ll heal, he knows; he also knows James had been through much worse in the past, but that still doesn’t change the fact that he hates this.

“I’m sorry,” he sighs.

“’s not your fault,” James nudges him gently.

“I know that. But I’ll enjoy making it up to you nevertheless,” Q promises, a smile on his lips, because oh, he will.

“Mmm," James presses a kiss against Q's ear. "Lots to look forward to,” he can hear the half-grin in James’ voice, and he grins back. “Only if you let me make it up to you too," James adds, and a small laugh tickles inside Q's chest.

“How could I refuse such an offer.”

The sound of a helicopter begins to grow in the distance.

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> A happy ending, of course :D


End file.
